Saturday

The following was written by British author, Babs Barron, a chartered psychologist in independent practice in the UK. Published here with her permission:

Together with the revelations about the identity of "Jihadi John"/Mohammed Emwazy, and notwithstanding the fawning media coverage of the CAGE spokesman's excuses for his behaviour, I believe that the UK is reaching a critical point in the unmasking of Islam's true agenda there. The revealing of Emwazy's true identity and the fact that he attended a university which had a history of radicalisation, so close to the General Election has brewed up the potential for a perfect storm for the political parties unless they can show that they will take Islam in hand.

However, they will fail utterly unless they educate themselves fully about how Islam perceives other belief systems and their social and cultural mores.

According to the latest census data, there were 33.2 million Christians, 263,346 Jews, and 2,660,116 Muslims in the UK in 2012. One may assume that those who define themselves in terms of their religious beliefs practice those beliefs although to varying degrees. We are told also that the Muslim population is the fastest growing in the UK, which should be a cause for concern, given the supremacist nature of Islam and its declared intention to subsume every other belief system to it.

There is also much discussion about whether Islam can be moderate given the hate-filled verses in the Qu'ran which instruct Muslims how to behave towards and regard non-Muslims. This has led me to examine the texts of the central prayers in each of the three Abrahamic religions as to whether they can be indicators of the intentions of each towards the others and to the wider society.

The Shema

Orthodox Jews recite the Shema in Hebrew. The Shema is an affirmation of Judaism and a declaration of faith in one God. The obligation to recite the Shema is separate from the obligation to pray and a Jew is obligated to say Shema in the morning and at night (Deut. 6:7). There follows a translation of it, from an Orthodox Jewish site. Jews are forbidden to write the name of God in full, hence the dashes in the words below:

"Hear, O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One.

(Recite the following verse in an undertone: )

Blessed be the name of the glory of His kingdom forever and ever.

You shall love the L-rd your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them thoroughly to your children, and you shall speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. And you shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and upon your gates.

And it will be, if you will diligently obey My commandments which I enjoin upon you this day, to love the L-rd your G-d and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, I will give rain for your land at the proper time, the early rain and the late rain, and you will gather in your grain, your wine and your oil. And I will give grass in your fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be sated. Take care lest your heart be lured away, and you turn astray and worship alien gods and bow down to them. For then the L-rd's wrath will flare up against you, and He will close the heavens so that there will be no rain and the earth will not yield its produce, and you will swiftly perish from the good land which the L-rd gives you. Therefore, place these words of Mine upon your heart and upon your soul, and bind them for a sign on your hand, and they shall be for a reminder between your eyes. You shall teach them to your children, to speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise. And you shall inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates — so that your days and the days of your children may be prolonged on the land which the L-rd swore to your fathers to give to them for as long as the heavens are above the earth.

The L-rd spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and tell them to make for themselves fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to attach a thread of blue on the fringe of each corner. They shall be to you as tzizit, and you shall look upon them and remember all the commandments of the L-rd and fulfill them, and you will not follow after your heart and after your eyes by which you go astray — so that you may remember and fulfill all My commandments and be holy to your G-d. I am the L-rd your G-d who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your G-d; I, the L-rd, am your G-d. True.

Note the conditional nature of the second and third paragraphs, taken from Deuteronomy, and how the prayer reminds the one who prays it what will happen if s/he fails to love God and follow His commandments. For all that, however, there is no threat of hellfire for those who stray — the worst the Jewish God threatens is famine.

"Our Father, which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth,
As it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,

For ever and ever. Amen."

There are commonalities in the Lord's Prayer and the Shema, notably in the declaration that there is one God. One notable difference, however, is the lack of what Carl Rogers would call "conditions of worth" in the latter — there is no threat of famine or anything else if Christians stray from their path. Even so, both the Shema and the Lord's Prayer are essentially loving — the former exhorting belief, the latter assuming it.

If we compare the essential prayers of the first two Abrahamic religions — Judaism and Christianity — with Islam, however, we see fundamental differences. Muslims are commanded to say the salat five times a day as part of their prayer ritual. I have reproduced part of it below, with what I believe to be the most important part in both Arabic and English. The recitation of it is very strictly circumscribed and Muslims are commanded to perform specific actions throughout it.

"Oh Allah, we ask you for help and seek your forgiveness, and we believe in you and have trust in you, and we praise you in the best way and we thank you and we are not ungrateful to you, and we forsake and turn away from the one who disobeys you. O Allah, we worship you only and pray to you and prostrate ourselves before you, and we run towards you and serve you, and we hope to receive your mercy, and we fear your punishment. Surely, the disbelievers will receive your punishment.

"Translation: O Allah, verily we seek your help, we believe in you, we put our trust in you and we praise you and we are not ungrateful to you. O Allah, you alone we worship and to you we pray and prostrate, for your sake we strive. We hope for your mercy and fear your punishment, for your punishment will certainly reach the disbelievers. O Allah, punish the infidels of the People of the Book who are preventing others from following your way (emphasis added).

Note the obsequious nature of the relationship with Allah, to fend off his wrath, and which is very much at the submissive polarity of the authoritarian personality spectrum. There is also "..we forsake and turn away from one who disobeys you..." The commandment not to befriend the infidel can be found in the Qu'ran.

Note also "Surely the disbelievers will receive your punishment" which has no counterpart in the Shema or the Lord's Prayer and smacks of the spitefulness of pernicious envy to say the least, and particularly, "O Allah, punish the infidels of the People of the Book who are preventing others from following your way," which underlines the supremacy of Islam in Muslim beliefs and the bitterness that Jews and Christians not only refuse to recognise that but discourage others from recognising it. This has no equivalent in the Jewish and Christian prayers, and it sets the tone for Islam's oppositional — and as we are now seeing, violent — relationship with Judaism and Christianity.

The salat is explicit that no true and mutualistic relationship should exist between Muslim and non-Muslim.

Do even moderate Muslims who attend mosque regularly say these prayers? If they are at all aware of what they are saying, do they believe that what they are saying dictates how they should behave? If not, why are they saying the salat? Even if the Muslim is not aware of its meaning, the supremacist attitude it represents has very probably been inculcated into him/her since childhood and is all of a piece with the hatred of Jews, Christians and all other faiths than Islam, which is absorbed from early years in a Muslim environment.

In the light of all this, how, without hypocrisy, can a Muslim who says salat five times a day, or even only occasionally, engage honestly in interfaith meetings on equal, mutualistic terms with Christians and Jews and other faiths?

The answer is, of course, that he cannot. As the British Islamist preacher Haitham Al-Haddad has noted, not only is the role of Interfaith a deception, it is a deception that is crucial:

"Of course, as Muslims, we believe that this co-existence cannot take place unless they are living under the umbrella of al-Islam ... these visions and strategies are meant to be for a short run, means within fifty years, something like this.

"The far ultimate aim for Muslims is to have Islam governing the whole world, Islamisation of the whole globe. This is the ultimate aim of any Muslim and of all communities, Muslim communities.

"But we are not talking about that at the moment. We are talking about the immediate goals. So, in terms of immediate goals we need this peaceful co-existence, and they claim that they are promoting it and we need to take it from there."

An important question: is the Quran the Word of God or is it a fabrication of a man. Thus, is the Quran the truth or a fiction and a hoax? The jihadists use many verses from the Quran as the main source of justification for their violence, mayhem and murders. There, the question is clearly given on pages 145 through 157 in THE ISLAMIC INVASION by Robert Morey in which he wrote a section on the Quran with its self-contradictions. Just two of the many he cited are the following “The Quran differs on whether a day is a thousand years or fifty thousand years in God’s sight’ and “Who was first to believe? Abraham or Moses [Sura 6:14 versus 7:143]? The above is inconsistent and illogical. Further, Morey wrote about “The fact that Judaism and Christianity broke up into different sects was used in the Quran to prove that they are not of God [Suras 30:20-32. 42:13, 14]. Yet Islam has broken up into many warring sects and therefore cannot be true if the Quran is right.” Moreover, Morey in his book shows many more contradictions and absurdities in the Quran, there are and how Muhammad incorporated extra Biblical and Jewish folklore along with pre-Islamic Arabian myth and parts of Zoroastrian and Hindu stories into the Quran. Furthermore, the Muslims claim that “the Quran is the direct, literal word of God unmodified in any way by the Prophet who uttered them at the bidding of God.” Nevertheless, in the book UNVEILING ISLAM by Ergun Mehmet and Eethi Caner has shown that the Quran was modified in the following account on pages 45. “Muhammad felt the need to improve on the words of Allah, since he changed Allah’s wisdom for his own on several occasions. A hadith tells of the nonchalant emendations of Muhammad:’ On a number of occasions he [a scribe] had, with the Prophet’s consent changed the closing words of verses. For example, when the prophet had said ‘God is mighty and wise ‘ Adbollah b. Abi Sarh suggested writing down ‘Knowing and wise’ and the Prophet answered that there was no objection. Having observed a succession of changes of this type, Adbollah renounced Islam on the grounds that revelations, if from God could not be changed at the prompting of a scribe such as himself. After his apostasy he went to Mecca and joined the Qorayshites.’ Other writers reveal that later Muhammad and his people did go war with the Qorayshites and he personally killed Abdollah. Obviously Abdollah knew too much and Muhammad wanted Abdollah’s knowledge to die with him.” In conclusion, the Quran is not only a fiction, it’s also a hoax.

I got the quote from Haitham Al-Haddad on interfaith from the report by Stand for Peace, entitled “The Interfaith Industry” by Stand for Peace at http://standforpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Interfaith-Industry.pdf (it’s on page 3).

I think that published psychological analyses of the 'destructive cult' nature of the sharia framework, and of those worshipping its god and setting up the alleged wants of this god as basis for their projections of 'bad/good/right/wrong', and of their god's character as perceived and evinced in sharia, is and will become very important in combatting the 'mind-forged manacles' of supremacist Islam. Sacralising someone's (in this case "Allah's") wants on the basis of their power and ferocity, and their promise of sexual rewards, seems to speak of fear, lust, confusion, and of self-doubt on the part of the person doing the sacralising that they have any ability/validity/'permission' to know or enquire anything directly for themselves. (My own lay view is that this is 'a god who belongs in Broadmoor'!:-) Apart from Nicolai Sennels, yours may be the only address of these matters that I've seen by a psychologist. Thank you, Babs.

For your article, I find it awfully simplistic. Clearly you either decided to cherry pick one piece from Jewish liturgy in order to make yout point or are ignorant of Jewish liturgy. You fail to note that the Shema promises both famine and the resulting death for people who do not worship God "the earth will not yield its produce, and you will swiftly perish from the good land". It doesn't promise hell-fire, because Judaism does not have a strong conception of hell. But the Shema is only recited twice a day. The core of Jewish liturgy is the Amidah, that does correspond more closely to the Salat, a series of prayers that cover the spectrum of Jewish needs from God. Within this we find the prayer, al-haminim:"And for the slanderers/heretics let there be no hope; and may all wickedness perish in an instant; and may all your enemies be cut down speedily. May you speedily uproot, smash, cast down, and humble wanton sinners-speedily in our days. Blessed are you O Lord, who breaks enemies and humbles wanton sinners."This prayer, composed by Rabban Gamliel targets groups such as the Christians, Essenes, and Sadducees as well as any people who do not worship God. This is a prayer that all orthodox Jews recite three times every day. Additionally, we find in the prayer after the Shema this text celebrating the destruction of Egypt:"All their firstborn you slew, but your firstborn you redeemed; the Sea of Reeds you split; the wanton sinners you drowned; the dear ones you brought across; and the water covered their foes, none of them was left. For this , the beloved praised and exalted God"Additional psalms recited throughout the beginning of the service celebrate the destruction of the Canaanites, the killing of King Og, and God's slaughter of the Egyptians.

The final prayer recited at every service is Aleinu. The text begins:"It is our duty to praise the Master of all, to ascribe greatness to the Author of creation, who has not made us like the nations of the lands nor placed us like the families of the earth; who has not made our portion like theirs, nor our destiny like all their multitudes. For they worship vanity and emptiness, and pray to a god who cannot save. But we bow in worship..."The phrase "vanity and emptiness" was interpreted both by critics of Judaism and Jews themselves as referring to Jesus and Mohammed, and "a god who cannot save" clearly references Christianity, especially since "save" yoshi'a, is related to Jesus in Hebrew "Yeshu'a". The prayer, continues:"Therefore we put our hope in you, Lord our God, that we may soon see your mighty splendor, to remove detestable idolatry from the earth, and false gods will be utterly cut off...then all the earth's inhabitants will recognize you...they will bend every knee and cast themselves down and to the glory of your name they will render homage, and they will all accept upon themselves the yoke of your kingship that you may reign over them soon and eternally...for the Lord is one and his name shall be one."This remains a powerful statement against both Islam and Christianity as well as a belief in the destruction of all religions and non-Jews and the forcing of them under the monarchy of God and Israel. So, yeah, I think Judaism's liturgy contains some far harsher passages than the Islamic Salat, which, as your article proposes, has as its worst passage "O Allah, punish the infidels of the People of the Book who are preventing others from following your way". Jewish liturgy not only curses and prays for the destruction of all who do not believe, but also celebrates God's killing of infidels and enemies. Finally, it looks forward gleefully at the destruction of all the religions of the world and the unity of Earth under the power of God and Israel, and the destruction of all who do not believe.As a final riposte, consider the text recited when Jews during Passover Seders open the door for Elijah, a wish for the messianic future:"Pour out Your wrath upon those who do not know You and upon the nations which do not call upon Your Name. For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place. Pour out Your fury upon them; let the fierceness of Your anger overtake them. Pursue them in indignation and destroy them from under Your heavens."Thus the hope for the Jewish messianic age is in God's complete destruction of all who do not believe or are not willing to embrace the god of the Jews. So, do you still think that Islamic liturgy is really more violent or thematically different than Jewish liturgy?

It's a shame that it's so evident from what you write that you yourself are cherry picking and that this is your own interpretation only which nevertheless you state as fact. The fixed nature of your argument detracts from it.

Everything you write in criticism of Judaism is,in fact fundamentally flawed, most importantly because Jews (unlike Muslims) are not commanded to act in imitation of the violence of past times (and I note that you fail to point out this fundamental difference between what Judaism demands of Jews and what Islam requires of its slaves). I am tempted to wonder why you have not made that link, much less demonstrated that you recognise that important difference.

Index for the Quran

Chronological Order

If you have a traditional Qur'an, get a PDF document to help you read the chapters in the order they were revealed rather than the traditional order (which is the longest to the shortest chapter): Click here.

Start Your Own Leaflet Campaign

Use this very informative and economical leaflet to help educate your fellow non-Muslims about Islam. Click here to read about the idea and get links to the PDF downloads.

Pamphlets and Leaflets

Print these out and use them to help you inform your fellow non-Muslims: Click here.

Brochure About Islam

This is a full color PDF document to print a two-sided brochure about basic information on Islam:

Let's Help Each Other

Take the Pledge

Some people say Islam is a religion of peace and that Islam has been hijacked by extremists, terrorists, and stealth jihadists who twist and distort the peaceful teachings of the Quran and quote it out of context.

Others say that political, supremacist, and even violent teachings are fundamental to Islam, and that people who say otherwise either haven’t read the Quran or are protecting Islam with religious deception (taqiyya).

The general confusion about the nature of Islam makes us collectively unable to make informed decisions. You can help end this confusion by reading the Quran. Stop believing what other people say and find out for yourself.

Article Spotlight

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).